


blue, red, gold

by rudeandginger



Category: Agent Carter (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Canon-Compliant to a point, F/F, Peggy Carter as Captain America, Period-Typical Racism, Steve Rogers is Not Captain America, captain carter the first avenger, diana and steve work for shield, diana gets a lot of peggy's lines from first avenger, diana is a pop culture pro, diana is played by gina torres, diana keeps it under wraps, gina or bust, i will not be taking questions at this time, lord i suck at titles y'all, peggy and pop culture, peggy loves diana, polyamory yay, well sort of with the poly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:50:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22029064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudeandginger/pseuds/rudeandginger
Summary: A crossover love story for the ages--Cap!Peggy and Diana Prince. Covers Captain America: The First Avenger and the present. The events of 2017's Wonder Woman have already occurred and Diana joined the Allies for World War II on Marvel's side of the multiverse.
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Diana (Wonder Woman), Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. the longest prologue ever

**Author's Note:**

> This contains a lot of recreations of existing Marvel/DC movies, down to the same actors. There is one very important change, and some things written here will not make sense if you have not mentally switched over. Wonder Woman is portrayed by Gina Torres in this fic. She was always the one I wanted to see onscreen.
> 
> Also of note: we are in Diana's head, not anyone else's.

Diana Prince has already seen a World War by the time she's invited to see the super-soldier experiment. She can do nothing but shake her head sadly. The war to end all wars just simply wasn't. She couldn't find Ares in this, though. This was a sneaky, underhanded, scarily high-tech war, no glory in it. Ares would never have stooped to these levels. No, this was nothing but man and his utter failure to communicate.

So all the powers that be agree talented spy and Bletchley Park alumna Margaret Carter will test the vita-ray therapy, including the spy herself. The young artist she loves, Steve Rogers, protests that it's not safe and he should be the one, but he is held back as she lays down in the pod, smiling and telling him it will be okay.

Disaster strikes. Carter is transformed successfully, but to the normal eye, only slightly. She had always been at the peak of perfection with regards to fitness, and her muscles are still lean, just more pronounced. But Dr. Zola is dead, killed by the assassin Kruger, who explodes the chamber and throws things into disarray. Diana does her best to try and stop him via shooting Kruger in the chamber, then his driver, then his car, and then facing him down in the speeding taxi, only to be tackled and protected by Peggy as she takes the final shot.

"I had him!" she protests in vain. Peggy obviously had no idea that Diana could stop a tanker truck if she chose.

"Sorry!" Peggy replies as politely as she can before running down the street in hot pursuit, all without anything more than a white camisole, Army-issue brown skirt, and bare feet. She forces the taxi to flip, makes sure Kruger must throw the child into the river (who can thankfully swim!) and then dives down to pull him from his submarine. All for nothing, unfortunately, as he swallows cyanide once Peggy pulls him to face her, muttering "Hail Hydra..."

It is Diana who catches up first, throwing a jacket around the soaking wet superhero to protect her modesty. Peggy screams angrily at the dead man as Diana pulls her away, but recovers her usual calm dignity by the time the rest of the brass arrive.

And no one knows how to duplicate the vita-rays. Records are uncovered showing that if Carter was a success, Rogers was to be next. The entire reason Dr. Zola chose Rogers was to follow in Carter's footsteps. The artist loses his mind, although no one is quite sure why. It takes him a full week to recover, the newly minted Captain America (hiding her accent) spending every second in his quarters with him that she has.

While the civilian shows are glitzy and successful, her first several shows with the enlisted men are an absolute disaster. The men expected another man, so they heckle, jeer, and insult, calling her Tinkerbell and demanding to see her legs. One rainy day, Diana finds her sitting in a corner, just staring off into the distance.

"Hello, Peggy," Diana says softly, sitting down next to her.

Peggy turns to look at her. "Hi."

"Hi." Diana smiles encouragingly.

"What brings you here?"

"Officially, I am not here at all. That was quite the performance."

"Yeah. I had to improvise a little bit. Crowds I'm used to are usually more, um, twelve. And also used to my native accent."

"I understand you're America's New Hope."

"Bond sales take a ten percent bump in every state I visit." Peggy shrugs.

"Is that Senator Brandt I hear?"

"At least he has me doing this. Phillips wishes to stick me in a lab."

"And these are your only two options? A lab rat or a dancing monkey?"

Peggy sighs.

"You were meant for more than this," Diana tells her pointedly, laying her hand between Peggy's shoulderblades.

Peggy thinks of something to say, opening her mouth, but then closes it.

"What?"

"I never wished to be a soldier," Peggy tells Diana. "But when I became used to it, I simply wanted to serve my country. Countries. Doing what I was doing before this. The vita-ray experiment was to give me everything I wanted. And it did. But look at me. I have everything, and I'm wearing tights."

After that, she spends plenty of time with Diana, who accompanies her on the USO tours as a quiet support, a rock to hang onto who, by all the the thunders, wasn't another man. Peggy Carter likes her beds hard and her whisky harder, but when Diana offers her softness with no strings attached, Peggy accepts, grief and guilt and hunger in her desperate touch. Diana embraces, kisses, validates. She has only ever wanted to heal other women, lift them up, make them see their inner goddess. Peggy is a goddess by reputation, the cheery All-American hero that all the Rosie Riveters looked up to with awe and envy. But in Diana's arms, Peggy is a young British housewife-to-be who is suddenly oh, so very lost and bewildered. Diana loves that poor girl until she can rest for good, that part of Peggy's past finally resolved. Then, she loves the superhero caught in a war to end all wars, who sometimes creaks at the seams and needs more than a tailor to patch her cloth armor when the road is rough and the war bleeds through to the cheery bond shows. Diana becomes the only one who hears the sweet lilt of Peggy's real voice, her fake accent now used everywhere but her bedroom. She is the only one who knows how Captain America cries over the lives she is unable to save, how the weight of that is almost suicidally brutal, how careful Peggy must be to keep that from everyone, as men will not understand. They will not understand, and they will pity her; pitying women is what they are best at. Diana has had too many years of familiarity through observation to say otherwise.

Peggy cries hot tears into Diana's shoulder, grateful for their height difference. Among men, she is imposing, overly large even with her average height, uncomfortably masculine for the old boys' club. With Diana, who she refers to as "tall, dark, and handsome" with a laugh, she can simply be herself. "And you kiss much better than anyone," she tells Diana one night as they're crunched up in a bed that is too small for them. "At least, anyone I've had the fortune or misfortune to lock lips with to date."

"Your compliments are always puzzling," Diana replies. "You say I am the best, but then you say you have had misfortune."

"I reckon you've had a few decades to figure us mortals out," Peggy teases. "We can't be that inscrutable."

"You are not a mortal, you are a goddess." Diana punctuates her statement with another award-winning kiss.

Sometimes, even the strongest of wills breaks, and Peggy's does when Steve hears of his friend's apparent demise. With Diana's help, she cobbles together an actual set of gear and is dropped off behind enemy lines. It takes several days, and both Diana and Steve are subjected to blistering dressing-downs by Phillips each day she's gone until the roaring of the camped men reveals her return with almost every troop in the platoon.

Diana meets her halfway, smirking ever so slightly. "You're late," she tells the filthy, ragged, but smiling Captain America.

"Couldn't call my ride," Peggy replies cheekily, holding up the shell of the field phone Diana had given her.

The kiss they finally get to share long after anyone but the night watch is awake is still on Diana's top five list of kisses throughout the whole of history. So, too, is the physical intimacy that came shortly thereafter, Diana biting down hard on the leather of Peggy's purloined jacket in an attempt to stay silent.

Peggy spends any downtime that they deploy Steve with him, of course. Neither she nor Diana mention their arrangement; Steve wouldn't understand, and jealousy is not part of Diana's nature. He reminds her of her own Steve, her sweet, pure soldier who saved the world without a thought to his own life. She supposed that Steve would also be very, very good at being Captain America, provided they ever cracked the code again. There have been attempts to reconstruct the vita-rays, but Peggy asks that they be tested, again, on her. And every time, she shakes her head. "That doesn't feel right," she tells them again and again. "That isn't going to do it."

"I'm afraid," she admits to Diana eventually. "I'm afraid they won't figure it out for years, and then he will be too old. And I'll lose him."

"They will keep working," Diana tells her, carding her fingers through Peggy's dark, silky locks. "They will never stop, nor will you. We must keep taking the chances when we have them, is all."

"You're the only person who will stay the same," Peggy whispers, sudden tears threading into her voice. "The world will leave us behind."

"It has not left me behind yet," Diana replies softly. "I do not intend that it ever will. And I will stay with you, darling."

Peggy sighs despondently. "I don't deserve you, Diana."

"No, you deserve better, but I am afraid you are stuck with me just the same."

Peggy does not discuss what happened on the train, but Diana hears from the others. James Barnes, a compatriot of Peggy and Steve, was lost to a wintry gulch. James was closer to Steve than Peggy was, but Peggy blames herself completely for losing him, for not controlling the situation to save him. She withdraws from both Diana and Steve, isolating herself completely until Diana finds her in the wreckage of an old building in London, just sitting there, listening to the radio.

"Dr. Erskine said that the serum wouldn't just affect my muscles, it would affect my cells. Create a protective system of regeneration and healing. Which means I still can't get drunk. Did you know that?"

"Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person. He thought it could be one of the side effects." Diana pauses meaningfully. "It wasn't your fault."

"Did you read the reports?" Peggy asks bluntly.

"Yes."

"Then you know that's not true."

"You did everything you could. Did you believe in your friend? Did you respect him?"

Peggy looks up at her silently.

"Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He must have thought you were worth it."

"I'm going after Schmidt. I'm not stopping til all of HYDRA is dead or captured."

"You would not be alone," Diana replies.

Peggy rides her motorbike into the secret HYDRA base in the Alps, laying waste to all in her way. The flamethrowers stop her, however, once too many of them appear.

"Arrogance may not be a uniquely British trait, but I must say you do it better than anyone," Schmidt sneers at Peggy once she is frogmarched before him. "But there are limits to what even you can do, Captain. Or did Erskine tell you otherwise?"

"He told me you were insane," Peggy replies calmly.

"Ah. He resented my genius and tried to deny me what was rightfully mine. But he gave you everything. So, what made you so special?"

"Nothing. I'm just a girl from Hampstead." Peggy takes the blows Schmidt deals her easily. "I could do this all day," she fires at him when he pauses.

"Oh, of course you can," he sneers. "Of course. But unfortunately, I am on a tight schedule." He takes out his cube energy pistol and points it at her.

"So am I."

Peggy smiles evilly as Diana and the team break through the windows of the base, finishing the job Peggy began. Many of the soldiers go down under the cube energy guns, but Diana rushes in headlong. Nothing in the world of men can kill her. Steve is slightly less gung-ho, but manages to take down a double-barrelled flame-wielding giant trying to incinerate Peggy down a hallway.

Peggy stalks up to him after it's safe. "You're late," she tells him, a fond edge to her tone.

Steve hides a smile. "Weren't you gonna..."

"Oh, yes." She looks away and runs headlong back into the fray.

When it looks like she won't be able to keep up with Red Skull's aircraft, Diana is there with a fast car and Steve in the backseat. "Get in," she roars at Peggy, who obeys instantly.

Diana floors it, trying desperately to keep up with the aircraft. She wishes she had her invisible airplane; it would come in very handy right now.

As they race towards evil, Peggy looks back at Steve, half in and out of the car. She leans in and kisses him, with love and fondness.

"Go get 'im." Steve says after the kiss is broken.

"I'm not kissing you," Diana says, half-joking since Steve does not know about them, but also to galvanize Peggy for the fight ahead.

Peggy manages to jump into the back of the giant plane piloted by Schmidt, and Diana has no idea what happens in the tense minutes while they all watch the multi-stage aerial battle. They can only trust in their Captain, that she'll make it right, save the day. As she always does.

But this time, it all goes wrong. Despite Steve's frantic attempts at trying to save his love, Captain America crashes the jet, laden with Schmidt's bombs, into the Arctic, the artist sobbing into the radio as it fades to static. "I'll never get that dance with her," he wails as Howard Stark runs in, pulls him close and hugs him fiercely. They're both crying, lovers of Captain America in different ways but both united in their grief. Diana keeps her sobs silent, silent and at a different time from everyone else. She had loved a goddess, a true goddess where she herself was only half. The world of men had lost one of its most beautiful, truly pure souls. And of course, she had been a woman.

Time passes, and Diana suits her various creeds and allegiances in the ways she sees fit. After Peggy's death, both she and Steve had been employed by first Howard Stark and then his son, Anthony, regularly. But Steve aged, whereas she did not. This was yet another heartbreak; before she'd slept with Steve Trevor, she'd had to come to grips with the fact that he would grow old, die, decay. Steve Rogers would never be her forever, nor would any in the world of men, now that Peggy was gone. She knew what they said about herself and the artist, that she was only a shadow replacement for the woman he truly loved. Part of that sentence was true, at least; she had been the replacement Peggy until Steve's grieving had run its course. But then they became more than lovers, they became partners, united in their beliefs of saving the world and honouring their goddess as best they could. The world waxed and waned, swung between acceptance and hatred.

"You sound like one of them Kyu-bans," a sleazy politician tells Diana at a high-level get-together in McCarthy's America.

"You could say that," she replies, showing mild amusement although she's heard that sentiment a thousand times before.

"Say, aren't you one of them pinkos then? They like colored folk."

"You could not say that," she tells him, "and you will never again."

His arm isn't broken, just badly bruised, and Phillips sends the employment-related repercussions down the line even though Diana tries to wave it off.

"It sets a bad example," she tells Steve. "It gives them fuel for their hatred."

Steve shrugs. "They're gonna hate someone. I say it's better you than the defenseless woman walking on the street."

Diana sighs. She has never understood the hearts of men, not really. She sits with the oppressed at the segregated lunch counters, submits meekly to being arrested only to be sprung by suits with security clearances that make the backwater sheriffs stammer. She stands silent watch over the ones who protest against the newest war to end all wars; they will not be injured by those sworn to protect them as long as she can help it. But Diana still fails to accept that she is only one, that she and Steve are only a duo, and you cannot save everyone, no matter how hard you try. She puts unfair pressure on Howard in the early 1980s, pushing and pushing him to find the cure for the young men who, otherwise completely alone, die screaming in her arms from their body failing them. He can't, though. The miracle man, the genius with unlimited money and curiousity simply cannot do it. Their relationship suffers until the day he and his bride are killed in a car wreck, and seventeen year old Anthony assumes the crushing weight that is the entirety of Stark Industries.

Steve hangs on until the late 1990s, the younger Stark giving him experiment after experiment in a desperate attempt to retain his memory, his presence, his being. But in the world of men, everything breaks, dies, decays. Diana and S.H.I.E.L.D. make sure Steve goes to the best care available, and she visits him at least once a week, painful as it becomes when his brain increasingly fails him. She never expected how much it would hurt the first time he mistook her for Peggy. Or how much it would hurt when he stopped. Diana moves forward. It's all she can do. Even if she could find her way back to Themyscira, she wouldn't go now. She has been here too long.

But then, one day, it's all over the news; Captain America has been found after seventy years frozen in the Arctic. Diana tells Steve excitedly; he forgets within moments and her heart, now so painfully full of hope, burns with bitterness. She gains permission to see Peggy as soon as she's adjusted to modern life.


	2. peggy picks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters will be short now that the prologue is out of the way.
> 
> Kind reminder that Diana is portrayed by Gina Torres within this story. She and Hayley Atwell would look achingly beautiful together, don't you think?

God, we can't stop her," the young man runs in and pants. "It failed!"

Diana and the rest run to where Peggy has forcibly broken out of the S.H.I.E.L.D building that she was in, having recognized the baseball game on the radio as one in her past. Diana sighs. "You should not have done it this way," she tells them. "You should have let her see my face first."

"Well, what do you want us to do -now-, Prince?" growls one of them.

"Leave us alone until I can get to her," Diana replies calmly.

"I am tired of this hellish dream," Peggy spits, British accent in place, as Diana slides into the booth at the diner. Nick Fury has had no success with her, as she refused to believe it was suddenly a new millennium.

"It is no dream, Peggy," Diana says softly.

"It must be. Because none of this is possible, least of all for you to be here." Peggy looks around. "Where's Steve? Isn't his cue just about...now?"

"Could we talk about this somewhere else?" Diana isn't fond of telling the entire diner she's immortal, but if she has to, she will.

"Where do you want to go?" Peggy crosses her arms defiantly.

"The park?" Diana inclines her head. "New York is still New York."

Peggy sighs. "You're at least the nicest hallucination of all of them."

They walk together in Central Park, Diana silent and letting Peggy just take it all in.

"I rather like being dead," Peggy offers after awhile. "The grass even smells real here."

"I have always imagined that would be the case," Diana replies.

"You're dead, you should know. As am I."

Diana sighs. "Peggy, you know very well I can't die. Not here."

"I was hoping you wouldn't bring that up." Peggy pulls the ball cap lower down her forehead.

"It has been seventy years," Diana says, very softly.

"Please don't."

"Would you like to visit Steve?"

Peggy stops dead and stares holes into Diana's soul.

\--

"Peggy! You're not dead! You came back!" Steve cries joyfully as Peggy kneels beside his bed and clasps his frail, ancient hands in hers.

"I'm right here, my darling," Peggy smiles through her sobs.

"Knew they couldn't keep ya down. Not our Captain America." Steve smiles back, as giddy as a child.

Diana stands back and watches, radiating love and support toward both of her lovers. But all too soon, the moment will pass. So she slips a thumb drive into the music player with the facade of a radio and plays their song.

Steve needs both of his lovers' help to gain his feet, but he insists upon it. Peggy holds him to her chest as tightly as she dares, making him rest all of his weight against her so as not to tire him out so quickly. They waltz slowly, and after a few moments Steve steps on both her feet, because he can't remember how to make his legs work. Peggy glides around the room, Steve's head on her shoulder, tears glittering in her eyes when she glances at Diana. She won't cry. Not while she's holding Steve. Not while his memory lasts.

It does last through the song, at the very least, and they put him back in bed where he smiles and cups both their cheeks lovingly. "My best girls," he tells them. "Together again." Then, both women see the old Steve fade before their eyes. His hands drop, and he asks if one of them would please get him some water. Peggy slips away, unable to bear it, and passes the glass to Diana before retreating to the far end of the room, out of Steve's sight.

"I'm off shift in a few," Diana tells him, as she knows she is now only one of the nice parade of nurses that come to talk to him. "Just wanted to check on you before I go."

He smiles. "Will you tell Diana I love her?"

Diana nods. "I will when I see her, I promise." She hears Peggy's running footsteps fading, and her heart sinks. She kisses Steve's hand as he closes his eyes. "I will tell Peggy too," she whispers to him, and he smiles in his sleep.

Peggy has found a small waiting area to scream and cry. But she won't throw things, no. Diana always loved the -civilized- way Peggy acted, even under extreme duress. So Diana lets herself in and slides her arms tightly around Peggy's shoulders.

"This is an awful dream," Peggy sobs into Diana's neck.

"I know. But you must live it," Diana replies. "We must live it, dearest."

"What am I to do now?"

"Whatever you choose, I hope that this moment it will be coming home with me."

Peggy nods, wiping her swollen eyes. "I would like that."

Diana makes toast and tea, the way she knows Peggy likes best. She puts in a call to a friend in the fashion world; Peggy has to update her style if she's going to be relevant in this day and age. The friend brings a measuring tape and color swatches; promises to include as much of the "old styles" as she can, which makes Peggy flinch.

"I am exhausted," Peggy admits to Diana, once the penthouse is only theirs again.

"Why? You had a seventy year nap," Diana replies, just the slightest hint of teasing in her voice. She slides her arm around Peggy's waist. "You should be ready to take on the world, Captain America."

Peggy groans. "Please take me to bed, -Wonder Woman-."

Once curled in bed next to Diana, Peggy explores her, first with wonder, and then with glee as Diana hasn't changed, not one iota. Her stomach is still ticklish under Peggy's fingertips, her wrists still fit neatly into Peggy's hands, she still kisses the same way. Peggy takes and is taken, so many times they stopped counting, her exhaustion taking on a new dimension as even vita-rays can't stand up to demigod stamina.

"I want to be where you are," Peggy says into Diana's hair before dropping a kiss on it. "Tomorrow and every day."

Diana kisses the hollow of Peggy's throat in reply. "Mister Fury will be so pleased."


	3. life as avengers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a lot of vignettes because we aren't going after Bucky and we aren't really going to go down the movie path anymore.

"-Please- just keep your personal life out of the press," Fury tells them both. "That's all I ask."

"No one knew about it before," Peggy replies icily. "Why do you think we would change that?"

"Social media," Tony breezes by. "You might not change it, but the Internet sure as hell will."

Peggy sighs and shakes her head. "This dream is absolutely rubbish."

Their relationship, however, is not seriously constrained in any new way. They are carefree gal pals within the walls of S.H.I.E.L.D. and in the helicarrier, holding hands as they walk and cracking jokes to others. They sit together at briefings, Peggy's possessive hand on Diana's knee under the table and everyone knows about it and doesn't care, but no one has the heart to tell Peggy so. It's nothing to find them on a sofa near a window on a Tuesday afternoon, Diana's arms looped around Peggy's waist as they enjoy the view.

"The two hottest women on the planet, forever, and they're nothing but heart eyes for each other," Tony grumbles to Clint in what he thought was a soft enough voice to not carry.

"Can you blame me?" Peggy fires back, looking back at him.

Diana lifts her head from Peggy's shoulder and smiles at the men. "There cannot be any contest between you and her. You know this, Anthony."

Tony rolls his eyes and Clint smirks. Diana knows he isn't actually indicating interest. He's just being the playboy his father was, except squared. And it never fails to rile Peggy up. Diana still does not understand jealousy, but she is content to let Peggy display it. No one has ever measured up to Peggy in Diana's estimation, and she became celibate when Steve could no longer perform. Too long in the world of men, and you begin to pine as they do, Diana found. But with her goddess returned to her, Diana couldn't want for anything, any-one- anymore.

\--

Peggy absolutely does not understand smartphones. The concept in her mind overall is sound enough, but she often calls for Diana or Tony, asking them to show her how to ask for the weather, or what that button does now that it suddenly appeared on her screen.

"Pegs, I'm gonna put a kid lock on this thing. The princess will have to enter a password before you buy apps and have no idea what they do," Tony said, tapping away at her device.

"You haven't earned the right to call me that, young whippersnapper," Peggy replies icily.

"Sorry, Cap." He places the phone in Diana's hand. "Pick a number, wouldya?"

Diana sets the six-digit PIN as the dd/mm/yy she and Peggy first found comfort in one another's arms. "I don't know how she guesses it," she lies smoothly to Tony. "I change it all the time, I promise you."

Peggy continues to download ill-advised apps, some that scatter poop emoji as her wallpaper or lock screen. "I still think it's amusing!" she calls after Tony as he stalks down the hall.

Tony resigns himself to the nonsense, compartmentalizes it as strengthening his firewalls overall.

\--

There are too many days when it feels like nothing except running, running, running. And fighting. So much fighting. Diana always comes out unscathed, but although highly enhanced, Peggy can and does bleed. Diana plays nursemaid for the umpteenth time in her life, but she doesn't mind. It feels like being back in the field with Steve, either of her Steves, but the difference is that she needn't mind the human fragility so carefully, that Peggy can take an awful lot of damage before falling back.

But then, the other gods land. The Asgardians. Diana regards them carefully. Thor is a stereotypical man of men, attitude and all, but he has a good heart. His brother, Loki, is unstable and unpredictable, but Diana supposes that with enough observation and relevant family history, she can crack his code. She chats Thor up quite a bit, discussing how it feels to be a god among humans and how difficult your parents tend to be when you're of the immortal strain. It feels good, almost a relief, to talk to another god. Diana's never been able to do so during her time in the world of men, and she takes advantage of it. Thor is naturally as curious as she, and they trade tips and anecdotes.

Peggy begins to sulk after about the third session. Her body language begins to close against Diana, who can't understand why. Not until many days later when Peggy finally blurts out, painfully, "So you're going to leave me for another god?" does she -get- it.

Diana stares at Peggy, aghast. "You think that I would abandon you?"

"Isn't that what you're already doing?" Peggy has tears in her eyes, and Diana can't stand it, can't stand the pain and jealousy that her lover has self-inflicted.

Diana bends the necessary inches, throws her arms around Peggy's hips, lifts her up, and carries her all the way back to their quarters. Peggy is stiff in her arms at first, but softens gradually until they're through the locked door and Diana can lay her onto the bed. Then she goes limp from stress, sighing regretfully over the feelings she couldn't help. Diana is of only one mind now: comfort her lover, soothe away the insecurities, imbue her with love.

"You are my heart's truest desire," Diana tells Peggy as she crawls atop her. "I have not wanted anyone again since you came back to me. I do not believe I am capable of that. Since you, there has only been our Steve. And after him, none. No lighthaired strong-man could take me from you, Peggy. Regardless of birth circumstance."

"I'm sorry," Peggy whispers, cupping Diana's cheek in her hand. "I felt like I was losing you."

"Whatever I did to give you that impression, please tell me." Diana turns her head to kiss Peggy's palm. "I will not make the mistake again."

"I have to learn to talk to you when I feel poorly," Peggy replies. "The fault is mine."

"Your words make me want to kiss them out of you," Diana says. "Because they aren't true."

"Shall I carry on saying them until you do, then? Wanting makeup sex after a row is a thing among us mere mortals, and I'm no exception."

"You are no mortal. You are a goddess." Diana leans down and captures Peggy's lips tenderly.


	4. pop culture and cap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, maybe a few nods to movie events.
> 
> Also, can you just -imagine- Peggy watching GBBO?

Not even superheroes are immune to PTSD, and no one is more surprised than Peggy herself. She triggers out watching Star Wars, the pew-pew lasers and blaster pistols uncomfortably close to cube energy guns. Diana switches as fast as she can to a 1940s streaming station and rocks Peggy back and forth in a full-body hold as she screams for comrades who died in action, pleading for them to stay down, to let her go instead. Natasha and Clint come running when they hear the screaming, but their combined strength doesn't remotely approach Peggy's, and they hover uncertainly.

"I have her," Diana shouts when Peggy takes a breath. "Leave us, I have her safe!"

"They call this fiction?" Peggy sobs once out of her flashback. "This is no bloody fiction!"

"No one knows the Hydra technology but us," Diana soothes, wiping Peggy's sweat away with a soft towel. "I shall show you the photo of the man who created this. You will see he could never have any knowledge of Hydra."

"I have never seen a man made of dough and stubble before," Peggy hiccups, blowing her nose as Diana shows her the likeness of George Lucas.

"We shall give him credit for a believable war, won't we?" Diana turns off her phone screen and braids Peggy's damp hair off her clammy neck. "Let us choose one of the classic animations you missed instead." She calls up the category on the television. "Which princess looks the nicest to you?"

"They all have the exact same eyes," Peggy responds, still blowing her nose. "Don't they all have the same story?"

Diana denies the initial request for Snow White that evening, however. "One potentially problematic cinema per night, my love."

Tiana the entrepreneur wins, with Peggy exclaiming praise as she "doesn't just bow down to a man!" The night ends pleasantly, Diana chuckling as Peggy hums "Almost There" while drifting off to sleep.

Peggy is much more at ease watching Star Trek, the mostly nonviolent spacefaring show. "This is how I should like the future to be," she says as they watch, fingers combing through the dark hair spilled over her lap.

"We try every day to ensure it, do we not?" Diana replies softly, arm slung across Peggy's knees.

\--

It doesn't matter how tough she acts. Peggy Carter is a pure soul who had the fortune to skip decades of abysmal human behavior, and Diana vows that she will never allow that purity to be tainted. Peggy must never see the world through eyes that are too cynical, and Diana does her best to hide as much of the cynicism-causing horror as best she can.

Then the Avengers accidentally lay waste to the city of New York, and all of them are subjected to brutal mistreatment in the press. Diana refuses to let Peggy have her phone after one too many occasions of finding her scrolling through Twitter, tears running down her face. "How can they say these things?" she asks Diana despondently. "They don't know anything about me."

"That is exactly how they can say hurtful things," Diana replies. "They do not know you as we do. As I do." She pulls the phone gently out of Peggy's hand. "And you will save every one them nonetheless."

"Yes," Peggy whispers. "I wouldn't be able to do otherwise."

"No more of this," Diana says, turning the phone off. "Come watch the baking show with me."

Peggy groans. "My other country is absolutely insufferable."

"It is nicer than the restaurant man who yells at everyone," Diana smiles, going to sit on the sofa and draping her arm across the back of it invitingly. "You must come explain the Battenback cake to me again."

Peggy sighs. "Batten-berg-, my darling." But she rises and crosses to the sofa, sitting down and curling into Diana's embrace as she works the remote.

"One day I'll understand that thing," she says softly, half-heartedly pointing at the device in Diana's hand.

"You know more every day," Diana responds.

They both know she doesn't just mean the remote.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a first for me in that I will now accept prompts for Peggy and Diana in this world. If you would like me to write something, leave a comment. If I write it, I'll put your username in the chapter notes as inspiration.


End file.
